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A LECTURE 

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P. MAX MULLER, M. A., 

PROFESSOR OP COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY AT OXFORD. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTORY SERMON 



AETHUR PENEHYN STANLEY, D. D.. 

DEAN OF WESTMINSTER. 



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DEC J mi 



THE END AND THE MEANS OF CHRIS- 
TIAN MISSIONS. 



Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Chris- 
tian. And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all 
that hear me this day, were, both almost and altogether, such as I am, 
except these bonds. 

? O 5e 'Aypinnag irpbg rbv Uav?iOV Hrj ■ '~Ev bTiiycp (j,e 7rei-&etg XpiaTiavbv 
yeviotiai. c O de ILavXoc elirev ■ "Ev^aLfi'nv av t& Qeti, not kv bTiiyu nal 
kv iroTJiC) ov [ibvov oe, dA/la nal izavrag tovc anovovrag fiov cyfiepov, 
yevEcftat roiovrovg, onolog nayo) elfit, TrapeKTog tCjv Seafiuv tovtcov. — 
Acts xxyi. 28, 29. 

When I preached on a like occasion last year 
I spoke at some length of the Prospects of 
Christian Missions/ and I ventured to give seven 
grounds which the peculiar circumstances of 
our time afforded for greater confidence in the 
future. First, the better knowledge of the 
Divine nature acquired by the extinction of 
the once universal belief that all heathens 
were everlastingly lost ; secondly, the increased 
acquaintance with the heathen religions them- 
selves; thirdly, the instruction which Christian 
missionaries have gained or may gain from their 
actual experience in foreign parts j fourthly, the 

1 Prospects of Christian Missions, a sermon preached in West- 
minster Abbey, on December 20, 1872. Strahan & Co., London. 



6 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS, 

recognition of the fact that the main hindrance 
to the success of Christian missions arises from 
the vices and sins of Christendom ; fifthly, an 
acknowledgment of the indirect influences of 
Christianity through legislation and civilization ; 
sixthly, the recognition of the advantage of ex- 
act, unvarnished, impartial statements of mis- 
sionary labor ; seventhly, the testimony borne 
by missionary experience to the common ele- 
ments and essential principles of the Christian 
religion. 

On these — the peculiar grounds for hope 
and for exertion in this our generation — I refer 
to the observations which I then made, and 
which I will not now repeat. 

I propose on this occasion to make a few 
remarks on the End and on the Means of Chris- 
tian Missions ; remarks which must of necessity 
be general in their import, but w 7 hich for that 
reason are the more suitable to be offered by 
one who cannot speak from personal and spe- 
cial experience. 

The text is taken from a striking incident in 
the life of the greatest of apostolic missionaries. 
It was in the presence of Felix and Agrippa 
that Paul had poured forth those few burning 
utterances which to Felix seemed like madness, 
but which Paul himself declared to be words of 
truth and soberness. Then it was that the 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS, 7 

Jewish prince, Agrippa — far better instructed 
than the heathen Felix, and seeing deeper into 
Paul's mind than he, yet still unconvinced — 
broke in upon the conversation with the words 
which in the English translation have well nigh 
passed into a proverb, " Almost thou persuadest 
me to be a Christian." The sense which they 
thus give would be in itself perfectly suitable 
to the halting, fickle character of the Herodian 
family, and would accurately describe the nu- 
merous half-converts throughout the world — 
" Almost," but not quite, u thou persuadest me 
to join the good cause." But the sense which, 
by the nearly universal consent of modern 
scholars, they really bear in the original is 
something still more instructive. The only 
meaning of which the Greek words are capable 
is an exclamation, half in jest and half in earn- 
est, " It is but a very brief and simple argument 
that you offer to work so great a change ; " or, 
if we may venture to bring out the sense more 
fully, " So few words, and such a vast conclu- 
sion ! " u So slight a foundation, and so gigantic 
a superstructure ! " " So scanty an outfit, and so 
perilous an enterprise ! " The speech breathes 
something of the spirit of Naaman, when he 
was told to wash in the Jordan — "Are not 
Abana and Pharpar better than all the waters 
of Israel?" It is like the complaint of the 



8 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 

popular prophets in the time of Hezekiah, whose 
taste demanded stronger flavor than the noble 
simplicity of Isaiah, " Line upon line, precept 
upon precept." It breathes the spirit of the 
Ephesian Christians who, when they heard St. 
John's repeated maxim of "Little children, love 
one another," said, " Is this all that he has to 
tell us ? " It expresses the spirit of many an 
one since, who has stumbled at the threshold of 
the genuine Gospel — " So vague, so simple, so 
universal. Is this worth the sacrifice that you 
demand ? Give us a demonstrative argument, 
a vast ceremonial, a complex system, a uniform 
government. Nothing else will satisfy us." 

As Agrippa's objection, so is Paul's answer. 
It would have indeed borne a good sense had 
he meant what in our English version he is 
made to say, " I would that both c almost and 
altogether.' Halfness or wholeness — I admire 
them both. Half a soul is better than none at 
all. To have come half way is better than 
never to have started at all ; but half is only 
good, because it leads towards the whole." 
Nevertheless, following the real meaning of 
Agrippa's remark, St. Paul's retort, in fact, 
bears a yet deeper significance — "I would 
to God, that whether by little or by much, 
whether by brief arguments or by long argu- 
ments, somehow and somewhere, the change 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 9 

were wrought. The means to me are compar- 
atively nothing, so long as the end is accom- 
plished." It is the same spirit as that which 
dictated the noble expression in the Epistle 
to the Philippians : " Some preach Christ of 
envy and strife, some also of good will. The 
one preach Christ of contention, the other of 
love. What then ? notwithstanding, every 
way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is 
preached." * 

And then he proceeds to vindicate the end 
which makes him indifferent as to the means. 
Agrippa, in his brief taunt, had said, " Such are 
the arguments by which you would fain make 
me a Christian." It is one of the few, one of 
the only three, occasions on which that glorious 
name is used in the New Testament. It is here 
charged not with the venerable meaning which 
we now attach to it, but with the novel and 
degrading associations which it bore in the 
mouth of every Jew and every Roman at that 
time — of Tacitus or Josephus, no less than of 
Felix or Agrippa. " Is it," so the king meant 
to say, "is it that you think to make me a 
Christian, a member of that despised, heretical, 
innovating sect, of which the very name is a 
sufficient condemnation ? " 

It is only by bearing this in mind that we 

1 Phil. i. 13-16 



10 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 

see the force of St. Paul's answer. He does 
not insist on the word ; he does not fight even 
for this sacred title ; he does not take it up as 
a pugnacious champion might take up the 
glove which his adversary had thrown down ; 
he does not say, " I would that thou wast a 
Christian." In his answer he bears his testimony 
to one of the gravest, the most fruitful, of all 
theological truths — that it is not the name 
but the thing, not the form but the reality, on 
which stress must be laid ; and he gives the 
most lucid, heartstirring illustration of what 
the reality is. " I would that not only thou, but 
all those who hear me were — what is no am- 
biguous catchword or byword, but — what you 
see before you ; I would that you all were such 
as I am — such as I am, upheld by the hopes 
filled with the affections, that sustain my 
charmed existence;" and then, with that ex- 
quisite courtesy which characterizes so many 
traits of the Apostle's history, glancing at the 
chains which bound him to the Eoman guard 
— " ' except these bonds.' This, whether you 
call it Christian or not, is what I desire to see 
you and all the world." " You see it before you 
in the life, the character, the spirit, of one who 
knows what Christianity is, and who wishes that 
all his fellow-creatures should partake of the 
happiness that he has gained, repose on the 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 11 

same principles that give him strength." This, 
then, is the statement of the greatest of mis- 
sionaries, both as to the end which he sought 
to attain, and the means by which he and we 
should seek to attain it. 

I. Let us first take the End : a Such as I am, 
except these bonds." That is the state to 
which St. Paul desired to bring all those who 
heard him. That, according to him, was the 
description of a Christian. No doubt if he had 
been pressed yet further, he would have said 
that he meant, "Such as Jesus Christ, my 
Lord." But he was satisfied with taking such 
a living, human, imperfect exemplification as 
he whom Felix and Agrippa saw in their pres- 
ence. " Such as Paul was ; " where is no am- 
biguous definition, no obsolete form. We know 
what manner of man he was, even better than 
Felix or Agrippa knew. Look at him with all 
his characteristic peculiarities ; a man passion- 
ately devoted to his own faithful friends, and 
clinging to the reminiscences of his race and 
country, yet with a heart open to embrace all 
mankind ; a man combining the strongest con- 
victions with an unbounded toleration of differ- 
ences, and an unbounded confidence in turth ; 
a man penetrated with the freedom of the 
Spirit, but with a profound appreciation of the 
value of great existing institutions whether 



12 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 

civil or religious — a thorough Roman citizen 
and a thorough Eastern gentleman ; a career 
of daring fortitude and endurance, undertaken 
in the strength of the persuasion that in Jesus 
Christ of Nazareth he had seen the highest 
perfection of Divine and human goodness — a 
Master worth living for and worth dying for, 
whose Spirit was to be the regenerating power 
of the whole world. This character, this con- 
dition it was to which St. Paul desired that his 
hearers should be brought. One only reserva- 
tion he makes ; " except these bonds," except 
those limitations, those circumscriptions, those 
vexations, those irritations, which belonged to 
the suffering, toil-worn circumstances in which 
he was at that moment placed. 

Such is the aim which, following the example 
of their most illustrious predecessor, all mis- 
sionaries ought to have before their eyes. To 
create, to preach, to exhibit those traits of 
character, those apostolical graces, those Divine 
intuitions, which even the hard Roman magis- 
trate and the superficial Jewish prince recog- 
nized in Paul of Tarsus. Where these are, 
there is Christianity. In proportion as any of 
these are attained, in that proportion has a 
human being become a Christian. Wherever 
and in proportion as these are not, there the 
missionary's labor has failed — there the seed 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 13 

has been sown to no purpose — there the name 
of Christian may be, but the reality is not. 

This preeminence of the object of Christian 
missions, — namely, the formation of heroic, 
apostolic, and therefore Christian characters, 
— has a wide practical importance. In these 
days — when there is so much temptation to 
dwell on the scaffolding, the apparatus, the or- 
ganization of religion, as though it were religion 
itself — it is doubly necessary to bear in mind 
what true Eeligion is, wherein lies the essential 
superiority of Christianity to all the other forms 
of religion on the surface of the earth. It is 
not merely the baptism of thousands of infants, 
such as filled a large part of the aspirations 
even of so great a missionary as Francis 
Xavier ; nor the adoption of the name of Christ, 
as was done on so vast a scale by the ferocious 
rebels of China ; nor the repetition, with ever 
so much accuracy, of the Christian creed, as 
was done by the pretended converts from Mo- 
hammedanism or Judaism, under the terrible 
compulsion of the Catholic sovereigns of Spain. 
Nor is it the assurance, ever so frequently re- 
peated, that we are saved ; nor is it the absolu- 
tion, ever so solemnly pronounced by a priest ; 
nor is it the shedding of floods of tears ; nor is 
it the adoption of voluntary self-degradation or 
solitary seclusion. All these may be found in 



14 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 

other religions in as great, or even greater 
force, than in Christianity. That which alone* 
if anything, stamps Christianity as the supreme 
religion, is that its essence, its object, is in none 
of these things, valuable as some of them may 
be as signs and symptoms of the change which 
every mission is intended to effect. The change 
itself, the end itself, Christianity itself, is at once 
greater and simpler. It is to be such as Paul 
was ; it is to produce characters, which in truth- 
fulness, in independence, in mercy, in purity, 
in charity, may recall something of the great 
Apostle, even as he recalled something of the 
mind which was in Christ Jesus. It was this 
clear vision of what he desired to see as the 
fruits of his teaching that made St. Paul 
so ready to admire whatsoever things were 
lovely and of good report wherever he found 
them. In Gentile or in Jew, in heathen or 
in Christian, he recognized at once the spirits 
kindred to his own, and welcomed them accord- 
ingly. He felt that he could raise them yet 
higher; but he was eager to claim them as 
his brethren even from the first. 1 Even in the 
legends which surround his history there has 
been preserved something of this genuine apos- 

1 Acts xiv. 16, 17 ; xvii. 23, 28 ; xix. 37 ; xxi. 26 ; xxii. 28 ; 
xxv. 11. Rom. ii. 6-15; xiii. 1-7 ; xiv. 6. 1 Cor. ix. 20-22; 
xv. 33. Phil. iv. 8. 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 15 

tolic sympathy. It was a fine touch in the 
ancient Latin hymn which described how, when 
he landed at Puteoli, he turned aside to the 
hill of Pausilipo to shed a tear over the tomb 
of Virgil, and thought how much he might 
have made of that noble soul if he had found 
him still on earth : — 

" Ad Maronis mausoleum 
Ductus, fudit super eum 

Pi a3 rorem lacryrnas — 
Quantum, dixit, te fecissem 
Si te vivum invenissem, 

Poetarum maxime." 

It was this which made him cling with such 
affectionate interest to his converts, to his 
friends, to his sons, as he calls them, in Christ 
Jesus. All that he sought, all that he looked 
for in them, was that they should show in their 
characters the seal of the spirit that animated 
himself. Whether they derived this character 
from himself or from Apollos or Cephas he 
cared not to ask. He was their pupil as much 
as their master. He disclaimed all dominion 
over their independent faith ; he claimed only 
to be a helper in their joy. 

This reproduction of Paul — this reproduc- 
tion of all that is best in ourselves or better 
than ourselves — in the minds and hearts of 
mankind, is the true work of the Christian mis- 
sionary ; and, in order to do this, he must be 



16 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 

himself that which he wishes to impress upon 
them in humility, goodness, courtesy, and holi- 
ness, except only the straitening bonds which 
cramp or confine each separate character, na- 
tion, and church. No disparager of Christian 
missions can dispute this — no champion of 
Christian missions need go beyond this. When, 
in the last century, the Danish missionary, 
Schwarz, was pursuing his labors at Tanjore, 
and the Rajah Hyder Ali desired to treat with 
the English Government, he said : " Do not 
send to me any of your agents, for I trust 
neither their words nor their treaties. But 
send to me the missionary of whose character 
I hear so much from every one ; him will I 
receive and trust." That was the electrifying, 
vivifying effect of the apparition of such an one 
as Paul — " a man who had indeed done noth- 
ing worthy of bonds or of death " — a man in 
whose entire disinterestedness and in whose 
transparent honor the image and superscription 
of his Master was written so that no one could 
mistake it. " In every nation, he that feareth 
God and worketh righteousness " is the noblest 
work of God our Creator — the most precious 
result of human endeavor. If any such by mis- 
sionary efforts, either convert or teacher, either 
direct or indirect, have been produced, then the 
prayers uttered, the labors inspired, the hopes 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 17 

expressed in these and like services have not 
been altogether in vain. One of the most 
striking facts to which our attention has been 
called as demanding our thankfulness on this 
day is the solemn testimony borne by the Gov- 
ernment of India to the fruits of " the blame- 
less lives and self-denying labors of their six 
hundred Protestant missionaries." And what 
are those fruits ? Not merely the adoption of 
this or that outward form of Christianity by 
this or that section of the Indian community. 
It is something which is in appearance less, but 
in reality far greater than this. It is something 
less like the question of Agrippa, but far more 
like the answer of Paul. It is that they have 
" infused new vigor into the stereotyped life 
of the vast populations placed under English 
rule ; " it is that they are u preparing those 
populations to be in every way better men and 
better citizens of the great Empire under which 
they dwell." That is a verdict on which w T e can 
rest with the assurance that it is not likely to be 
reversed. Individual conversions may relapse 
— may be accounted for by special motives ; 
but long-sustained, wide-reaching changes of 
the whole tenor and bent of a man or of a na- 
tion are beyond suspicion. When we see the 
immovable and, as the official document says, 
" the stereotyped " forms of Indian life reani- 
2 



18> CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 

mated with a vigor unknown to the Oriental 
races in earlier days, this is a regeneration as 
surprising as that which, to a famous missionary 
of the past generation, seemed as impossible as 
the restoration of a mummy to life — namely, 
the conversion of a single Brahmin. 

This, then, is the End of Christian missions, 
whether to heathens or to Christians, namely, 
to make better men and better citizens — to 
raise the whole of society by inspiring it with a 
higher view of duty, with a stronger sense of 
truth ; with a more powerful conviction that 
only by goodness and truth can God be ap- 
proached or Christ be served — that God is 
goodness and truth, and that Christ is the 
Image of God, because He is goodness and 
truth. If this be the legitimate result of Chris- 
tianity, no further arguments are needed to 
prove that it contains a light which is worth 
imparting, and which, whenever it is imparted, 
vindicates its heavenly origin and its heaven- 
ward tendency. 

II. This is the End; and now what are the 
Means ? They are what we might expect in 
the view of so great an end. Anything (so the 
Apostle tells us), be it small or great, short or 
long, scanty or ample ; the manners of a Jew 
for Jews, the manners of a Gentile for Gentiles, 
" all things for all men," 1 are worth considering^ 

1 1 Cor. ix. 20-22. 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 19 

if "by any of these means he might save/' that 
is, elevate, sanctify, purify, any of those to 
whom he spoke. When we reflect upon the 
many various efforts to do good in this mani- 
fold world — the multitude of sermons, societies, 
agencies, excitements, which to some seem as 
futile and fruitless as to others they seem pre- 
cious and important — it is a true consolation 
to bear in mind the Apostle's wise and gener- 
ous maxim, u Whether by little or by much, 
whether in pretense or in truth, whether of 
strife or of good-will, Christ is preached, and I 
therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice." It may 
be by a short, sudden, electric shock, or it may 
be by a long course of civilizing, humanizing 
tendencies. It may be by a single text, such 
as that which awoke the conscience of Augus- 
tine ; or a single interview, like Justin's with 
the unknown philosopher ; or it may be by a 
long systematic treatise — Butler's u Analogy," 
or Lardner's " Credibilia," or the " Institutes" 
of Calvin, or the u Suinma Theologiae " of 
Aquinas. It may be by the sudden flush of 
victory in battle, such as convinced Clovis on 
the field of Tolbiac ; or the argument of a 
peaceful conference, such as convinced our own 
Ethelbert. It may be by teachers steeped in 
what was by half the Christian world regarded 
as deadly heresy, such as the Arian Bishop 



20 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 

Ulfilas, by whom were converted to the faith 
those mighty Gothic tribes which formed the 
first elements of European Christendom, and 
whose good deeds Augustine regarded, not- 
withstanding their errors, as the glory of the 
Christian name. 1 It may be by teachers as 
immersed in strange and fanciful superstitions, 
now repudiated by the civilized world, as was 
the famous Roman Pontiff who sent the first 
missionaries to these shores. Sometimes the 
change has been effected by the sight of a 
single picture, as when Vladimir of Russia was 
shown the representation of the Last Judg- 
ment, — sometimes by a dream or a sign, 
known only to those who were affected by it, 
such as the vision of the Cross which arrested 
Constantine on his way to Rome, or changed 
Colonel Gardiner's dissolute youth to a man- 
hood of strict and sober piety. Sometimes it 
has been by the earnest preaching of mis- 
sionaries, confessedly ill-educated and ill-pre- 
pared for the work which they had to accom- 
plish ; sometimes by the slow infiltration of 
Christian literature and Christian civilization ; 

1 In the well-known passage where, speaking of their modera- 
tion and humanity in the capture of Rome, he concludes : " Hoc 
Christi nomini, hoc Christiano tempori tribuendum quisquis non 
videt, csecus ; quisquis non laudat, ingratus ; quisquis laudanti 
reluctatur, ingratus est." — De Civitate Dei, i. c. 7. Compare 
Ibid. c. 1, and Sermon cv., De Ev. S. Luc. 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 21 

the grandeur, in old days, of Rome and Con- 
stantinople ; in our days, the superiority of 
European genius, the spread of English com- 
merce, the establishment of just laws, pure 
homes, merciful institutions. 

We do not say that all these means are 
equally good or equally efficacious. St. Paul, 
in his argument with Agrippa, did not mean to 
say that " almost and altogether," that u much 
and little," were the same ; he did not mean 
that it was equally good that Christ should be 
preached in strife or in good-will ; he did not 
mean that a good end justified bad means, or 
that we may do evil that good may come ; he 
did not mean to justify the falsehoods which are 
profanely called pious frauds, nor the persecu- 
tions which have been set on foot by those who 
thought to do God service, or the attempt to 
stimulate artificial excitement by undermining 
the moral strength and manly independence 
of the human spirit. God forbid ! But what he 
meant, and what we mean with him, is this : 
In true Christian missions, in the conversion of 
human souls from dead works, from sin, from 
folly, from barbarism, from hardness, from self- 
ishness, to goodness and purity, justice and 
truth, the field is so vast, the diversity of char- 
acter in men and nations is so infinite, the en- 
terprise so arduous, the aspects of Divine truth 



22 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 

so various, that it is on the one hand a duty 
for each one to follow out that particular means 
of conversion which seems to him most effica- 
cious, and on the other hand to acquiesce in the 
converging use of many means which cannot, by 
the nature of the case, appear equally efficacious 
to every one. Such a toleration, such an adop- 
tion of the different modes of carrying on what 
John Bunyan called the Holy War, the Siege 
of Man's Soul, must indeed be always con- 
trolled by the determination to keep the high, 
paramount, universal end always in view; by 
the vigilant endeavor to repress the exaggera- 
tion, to denounce the follies and the falsehoods 
which infect even the best attempts of narrow 
and fallible, though good and faithful, servants 
of their Lord. But, if once we have this fixed 
in our minds, it then surely becomes a solace to 
remember that the soul of man is won by a 
thousand different approaches — that thus the 
instruments which often seem most unworthy 
may yet serve to produce a result far above 
themselves — that when "we have toiled all 
night and taken nothing " by keeping close to 
the shore, or by throwing out our nets always 
on one side, yet if we have courage " to launch 
out into the deep, and cast out our nets on the 
other side of the ship," we shall a inclose a 
great multitude of fishes, so that the net shall 
break." 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 23 

He is a traitor to the cause who exalts the 
means above the end, or who seeks an end alto- 
gether different from that to which his alle- 
giance binds him ; but he is not a traitor, but a 
faithful soldier, who makes the best use of all 
the means that are placed in his hands. Long 
after the imperfect instruments have perished 
the results will endure, and in forms wholly un- 
like the insufficiency or the meagreness of the 
first propelling cause. The preaching of Henry 
Martyn may have been tinged by a zeal often 
not according to knowledge ; but the savor of 
his holy and self-denying life has passed like 
a sweet-smelling incense through the whole 
frame-work of Indian society. " Even," so he 
said himself, " if I should never see a native 
converted, God may design by my patience and 
continuance in the work to encourage future 
missionaries." 

The more profoundly we are impressed with 
the degradation of the heathen nations, with 
the corruption of the Christian churches, the 
more thankful should we be for any attempts, 
however slight and however various, to quicken 
the sluggish mass, and enlighten the blackness 
of the night, provided only that the mass is 
permanently quickened, and the darkness is in 
any measure dispelled. " I have lived too long," 
said Lord Macaulay on his return from India to 



24 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 

England, " I have lived too long in a country 
where people worship cows, to think much of 
the differences which part Christians from Chris- 
tians." And, in fact, as the official report to 
which I have referred testifies in strong terms, 
the presence of the great evils which Indian 
missionaries have to confront, has often pro- 
duced in them a noble and truly Christian in- 
difference to the trivial divergences between 
themselves. "Even a one-eyed man," says the 
proverb, " is a king amongst the blind." Even 
the shepherd's sling may perchance smite down 
the Goliath of Gath. The rough sledge-hammer 
of a rustic preacher may strike home, where 
the most polished scholar would plead in vain. 
The calm judgment of the wise and good, or 
the silent example, or the understanding sym- 
pathy, or the wide survey of the whole field of 
the religions of mankind, may awaken con- 
victions which all the declamations of all the 
churches would fail to arouse. 

The misery of the war on the coast of Africa, 
the terrible prospect of the Indian famine, may 
furnish the very opening which we most desire. 
They may be the very touchstones by which 
these suffering heathens will test the practical 
efficiency of a Christian government and a 
Christian nation, of Christian missionaries and 
Christian people, and, having so tested it, will 
judge. 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 25 

When the first Napoleon suddenly found 
himself among the quicksands of the Red Sea, 
he ordered his generals to ride out in so many 
opposite directions, and the first who arrived 
on firm ground to call on the rest to follow. 
This is what we may ask of all the various 
schemes and agencies — all the various in 
quiries after truth now at work in all the dif 
ferent branches and classes of Christendom 
— "Ride out amongst those quicksands ! Ride 
out in the most opposite directions, and let him 
that first finds solid ground call out to us ! It 
may perchance be the very ground in the midst 
of this quaking morass where we shall be able 
to stand firm and move the world." 

There is one special variety of means which 
I would venture to name in conclusion. Ever 
since the close of the Apostolic age there have 
been two separate agencies in the Christian 
Church by which the work of conversion has 
been carried on. The chief, the recognized, the 
ordinary agency has been that of the clergy. 
Every pastor, every presbyter, every bishop in 
the Church of the Roman Empire, and again in 
the beginning of Christian Europe was, in the 
strict sense of the word, a missionary ; and al- 
though their functions have in these latter days 
been for the most part best fulfilled by follow- 
ing their stationary, fixed, pastoral charges, yet 



26 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 

it is still from their ranks in all the different 
churches that the noble army of missionaries 
and martyrs in foreign lands has been, and is, 
and must be recruited. Most unwise and un- 
worthy would be any word which should under- 
rate the importance of this mighty element in 
the work of renewing the face of the earth. 
But there has always been recognized, more or 
less distinctly, the agency of Christian laymen 
in this same work of evangelization. Not only 
in that more general sense in which I have 
already indicated the effect of the laws, and 
literature, and influence of Christian Europe 
— not only in that unquestionable sense in 
which the best of all missionaries is a high- 
minded governor, or an upright magistrate, or 
a devout and pure-minded soldier, who is al- 
ways " trusting in God and doing his duty ; " 
not only in these senses do we look for the co- 
operation of laymen, but also in the more direct 
forms of instruction, of intelligent and far-seeing 
interest in labors, which, though carried on 
mainly by the clergy, must, if they are to be 
good for anything, concern all mankind alike. 
In the early centuries of Christianity the aid of 
laymen was freely invoked and freely given in 
this great cause. Such was Origen, the most 
learned and the most gifted of the Fathers, who 
preached as a layman in the presence of pres- 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 27 

byters and bishops. Such was one of the first 
evangelizers of India, Pantsenus ; such was 
the hermit Telemachus, whose earnest protest, 
aided by his heroic death, extinguished at Rome 
the horrors of the gladiatorial games ; such was 
Antony, the mighty preacher in the wilds of 
the Thebaid and the streets of Alexandria ; 
such, in later days, was Francis of Assisi, when 
first he began his career as the most famous 
preacher of the Middle Ages ; such, just before 
the Reformation, was our own Sir Thomas 
More. 1 In these instances, as in many others, 
the influence, the learning, the zeal of laymen 
w T as directly imported into the work of Chris- 
tianizing the nations of Europe. It is for this 
reason that we, in our age also, so far as the 
law and order of our churches permit, have fre- 
quently received the assistance of laymen ; 
who, by the weight of their character or their 
knowledge, can render a fresh testimony, or 
throw a fresh light on subjects where we, the 
clergy, should perhaps be heard less willingly. 
As their voices have been raised on this sacred 
subject of missions in many a humbe parish 

1 " Sir Thomas More after he was called to the Bar in Lin- 
coln's Inn did, for a considerable time, read a public lecture 
out of St. Augustine De Civitate Dei, in the Church of St. Law- 
rence in the Old Jewry, to which the learneder sort of the 
City of London did resort." — Wood's Athence Oxonienses, fol. 
ed. 1721, pp. 182, 183. 



28 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 

church ; as also on other sacred topics, such as 
Christian art and history, their words have often 
been heard within the consecrated walls of this 
and other great abbeys and cathedrals, — so 
we shall have the privilege of listening this 
evening in the nave of this church to a scholar 
renowned throughout the world, whose knowl- 
edge of all heathen religions in connection with 
the experience of Christian missions probably 
exceeds that of any other single person in 
Europe — in the hope that a more systematic 
form may thus be given to our knowledge, and 
a more concentrated direction to our zeal. 

I conclude by once more applying the Apos- 
tle's words to the Means and the End of Chris- 
tian missions. We would to God that whether 
by little or by much, whether by sudden stroke 
or by elaborate reasoning, whether in a brief 
moment or by long process of years, whether 
by the fervor of active clergy, or by the learn- 
ing of impartial laymen, whether by illiterate 
simplicity or by wide philosophy — not only 
those who hear me, but all on whom the ser- 
vices of this day, far and near, have any influ- 
ence, may become, at least in some degree, 
such as was Paul the Apostle, such as have been 
the wisest and best of Christian missionaries, 
except only those bonds which belong to time 
and place, not to the Eternal Spirit and the 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 29 

Everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ. We can- 
not wish, a better wish or pray a better prayer 
to God on this day than that amongst the mis- 
sionaries who teach, amongst the heathens who 
hear, there should be raised up men who should 
exhibit that type of Christian truth and of 
Christian life which w T as seen by Felix and 
Agrippa in Paul of Tarsus. May the Giver 
of all good gifts give to us some portion of his 
cheerful and manly faith, of his fearless energy, 
of his horror of narrowness and superstition, 
of his love for God and for mankind, of his ab- 
solute faith in the triumph of his Redeemer's 
cause. May God our Father waken in us the 
sense that we are all his children ; may the 
whole earth become more and more one fold 
under one Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ his 
Son ; may the Holy Spirit 

" Our souls inspire, 
And lighten with celestial fire." 



LECTURE ON MISSIONS, 



DELIVERED IN THE 

NAVE OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 

ON THE 

Evening of December 3, 1873, 

BY 

PROFESSOR MAX MULLER. 



LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 



The number of religions which have attained 
stability and permanence in the history Number of 
of the world is very small. If we leave religions. 
out of consideration those vague and varying 
forms of faith and worship which w r e find among 
uncivilized and unsettled races, among races 
ignorant of reading and writing, who have 
neither a literature, nor laws, nor even hymns 
and prayers handed down by oral teaching 
from father to son, from mother to daughter, 
we see that the number of the real historical 
religions of mankind amounts to no more than 
eight. The Semitic races have produced three : 
the Jewish, the Christian, the Mohammedan ; the 
Aryan, or Indo-European races, an equal num- 
ber : the Brahman, the Buddhist, and the Parsi. 
Add to these the two religious systems of 
China, that of Confucius and Lao-tse, and you 
have before you what may be called the eight 
distinct languages or utterances of the faith of 
mankind from the beginning of the world to 



34 LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 

the present day ; you have before you in broad 
outlines the religious map of the whole world. 
All these religions, however, have a history, 
comparative a history more deeply interesting than 
l^ons? e " the history of language, of literature, of 
art, or politics. Religions are not unchange- 
able ; on the contrary, they are always growing 
and changing ; and if they cease to grow and 
cease to change, they cease to live. Some of 
these religions stand by themselves, totally in- 
dependent of all the rest; others are closely 
united, or have influenced each other during 
various stages of their growth and decay. 
They must therefore be studied together, if 
we wish to understand their real character, 
their growth, their decay, and their resuscita- 
tions. Thus, Mohammedanism would be unin- 
telligible without Christianity ; Christianity 
without Judaism : and there are similar bonds 
that hold together the great religions of India 
and Persia — the faith of the Brahman, the 
Buddhist, and the Parsi. After a careful study 
of the origin and growth of these religions, and 
after a critical examination of the sacred books 
on which all of them profess to be founded, it 
has become possible to subject them all to a 
scientific classification, in the same manner as 
languages, apparently unconnected and mutu- 
ally unintelligible, have been scientifically ar- 



LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 35 

ranged and classified ; and by a comparison of 
those points which all or some of them share 
in common, as well as by a determination of 
those which are peculiar to each, a new science 
has been called into life, a science which con- 
cerns us all, and in which all who truly care 
for religion must sooner or later take their part 
— the Science of Religion. 

Among the various classifications 1 which 
have been applied to the religions of „. . 

-I i- o Missionary 

the world, there is one that interests S^XSiy 
us more immediately to-night, I mean Rellglons - 
the division into Non-Missionary and Missionary 
religions. This is by no means, as might be 
supposed, a classification based on an unim- 
portant or merely accidental characteristic ; 
on the contrary, it rests on what is the very 
heart-blood in every system of human faith. 
Among the six religions of the Aryan and 
Semitic world, there are three that are op- 
posed to all Missionary enterprise — Judaism,, 
Brahmanism, and Zoroastrianism ; and three that 
have a Missionary character from their very 
beginning — Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and 
Christianity. 

The Jews, particularly in ancient times, never 
thought of spreading their religion. Judaism. 
Their religion w r as to them a treasure, a privi- 
lege, a blessing, something to distinguish them, 



36 LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 

as the chosen people of God, from all the rest 
of the world. A Jew must be of the seed of 
Abraham : and when in later times, owing 
chiefly to political circumstances, the Jews had 
to admit strangers to some of the privileges of 
their theocracy, they looked upon them, not as 
souls that had been gained, saved, born again 
into a new brotherhood, but as strangers (t^n?), 
as Proselytes (Trpoo-^Woi) • which means men who 
have come to them as aliens, not to be trusted, 
as their saying was, until the twenty-fourth 
generation. 2 

A very similar feeling prevented the Brah- 
Brahman- mans from ever attempting to prosely- 
lsm ' tize those who did not by birth belong 

to the spiritual aristocracy of their country. 
Their wish was rather to keep the light to 
themselves, to repel intruders ; they went so 
far as to punish those who happened to be 
near enough to hear even the sound of their 
prayers, or to witness their sacrifices. 3 

The Parsi, too, does not wish for converts to 
zoroastri- ^ s re ligi° n \ he is proud of his faith, 
anism " as of his blood ; and though he believes 
in the final victory of truth and light, though 
he says to every man, ' Be bright as the sun, 
pure as the moon,' he himself does very little 
to drive away spiritual darkness from the face 
of the earth, by letting the light that is within 
him shine before the world. 



LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 37 

But now let us look at the other cluster of 
religions, at Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Missionary 
and Christianity. However they may Rell s lons - 
differ from each other in some of their most 
essential doctrines, th ! s they share in common 
— they all have faith in themselves, they all 
have life and vigor, they want to convince, they 
mean to conquer. From the very earliest dawn 
of their existence these three religions were 
missionary : their very founders, or their first 
apostles, recognized the new duty of spreading 
the truth, of refuting error, of bringing the 
whole world to acknowledge the paramount, if 
not the divine, authority of their doctrines. 
That is what gives to them all a common ex- 
pression, and lifts them high above the level of 
the other religions of the world. 

Let us begin with Buddhism. We know, in- 
deed, very little of its origin and ear- Buddhism, 
nest growth, for the earliest beginnings of all 
religions withdraw themselves by necessity 
from the eye of the historian. But we have 
something like contemporary evidence of the 
Great Council, held at Pataliputra, 246 b. c, in 
which the sacred canon of the Buddhist scrip- 
tures was settled, and at the end of which mis- 
sionaries were chosen and sent forth to preach 
the new doctrine, not only in India, but far be- 
yond the frontiers of that vast country. 4 We 



38 LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 

possess inscriptions containing the edicts of the 
king who was to Buddhism what Constantine 
was to Christianity, who broke with the tradi- 
tions of the old religion of the Brahmans, and 
recognized the doctrines of Buddha as the state 
religion of India. We possess the description 
of that Buddhist Council, which was to India 
what the Council of Nicsea, 570 years later, 
was to Europe ; and we can still read there 5 
the simple story, how the chief Elder who had 
presided over the Council, an old man, too 
weak to travel by land, and carried from his 
hermitage to the Council in a boat — how that 
man, when the Council was over, began to re- 
flect on the future, and found that the time 
had come to establish the religion of Buddha 
in foreign countries. He therefore dispatched 
some of the most eminent priests to Cashmere, 
Cabul, and farther west, to the colonies founded 
by the Greeks in Bactria, to Alexandria on the 
Caucasus, and other cities. He sent others 
northward to Nepaul, and to the inhabited por- 
tions of the Himalayan mountains. Another 
mission proceeded to the Dekhan, to the peo- 
ple of Mysore, to the Mahrattas, perhaps to 
Goa; nay, even Birma and Ceylon are men- 
tioned as among the earliest missionary stations 
of Buddhist priests. We still possess accounts 
of their manner of preaching. When threat- 



LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 39 

ened by infuriated crowds, one of those Bud- 
dhist missionaries said calmly, "Even if the gods 
were united with men, they would not frighten 
Hie away." And when he had brought the peo- 
ple to listen, he dismissed them with the simple 
prayer, u Do not hereafter give way to pride 
and anger ; care for the happiness of all living 
beings, and abstain from violence. Extend your 
good- will to all mankind ; let there be peace 
among the dwellers on earth.'" 

No doubt, the accounts of the successes 
achieved by those early missionaries are exag- 
gerated, and their fights with snakes and drag- 
ons and evil spirits remind us sometimes of the 
legendary accounts of the achievements of such 
men as St. Patrick in Ireland, or St. Boniface in 
Germany. But the fact that missionaries were 
sent out to convert the w r orld seems beyond 
the reach of doubt • 6 and this fact represents to 
us at that time a new thought, new, not only 
in the history of India, but in the history of 
the whole world. The recognition of a duty 
to preach the truth to every man, woman, and 
child, was an idea opposed to the deepest in- 
stincts of Brahmanism ; and when, at the end 
of the chapter on the first missions, we read 
the simple w r ords of the old chronicler, u Who 
would demur, if the salvation of the world is at 
stake ? " we feel at once that we move in a new 



40 LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 

world, we see the dawn of a new day, the open- 
ing of vaster horizons — we feel, for the first 
time in the history of the world, the beating of 
the great heart of humanity. 

The Koran breathes a different spirit ; it does 
Mohamme- no * i nv ite, it rather compels the world 
damsm. ^ come j n Yet there are passages, 
particularly in the earlier portions, which show 
that Mohammed, too, had realized the idea of 
humanity, and of a religion of humanity ; nay, 
that at first he wished to unite his own relig- 
ion with that of the Jews and Christians, com- 
prehending all under the common name of 
Islam. Islam meant originally humility or de- 
votion; and all who humbled themselves be- 
fore God, and were filled with real revernece, 
were called Moslim. " The Islam," says Mo- 
hammed, " is the true worship of God. When 
men dispute with you, say, ' I am a Moslim.' 
Ask those who have sacred books, and ask the 
heathen : ' Are you Moslim ? ' If they are, 
they are on the right path ; but if they turn 
away, then you have no other task but to de- 
liver the message, to preach to them the 
Islam." 6 

As to our own religion, its very soul is mis- 
christianity. sionary, progressive, world-embracing ; 
it would cease to exist if it ceased to be mis- 
sionary — if it disregarded the parting words 



LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 41 

of its Founder : " Go ye therefore and teach 
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; 
teaching them to observe all things I have 
commanded; and, lo, I am with you alway, 
even unto the end of the world." 

It is this missionary character, peculiar to 
these three religions, Buddhism, Mohammedan- 
ism, and Christianity, which binds them to- 
gether, and lifts them to a higher sphere. 
Their differences, no doubt, are great ; on some 
points they are opposed to each other like day 
and night. But they could not be what they 
are, they could not have achieved what they 
have achieved, unless the spirit of truth and 
the spirit of love had been alive in the hearts 
of their founders, their first messengers, and 
missionaries. 

The spirit of truth is the life-spring of all 
religion, and where it exists it must The spirit 
manifest itself, it must plead, it must 
persuade, it must convince and convert. Mis- 
sionary work, however, in the usual sense of 
the word, is only one manifestation of that 
spirit ; for the same spirit which fills the heart 
of the missionary with daring abroad, gives 
courage also to the preacher at home, bearing 
witness to the truth that is within him. The 
religions which can boast of missionaries who 



42 LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 

left the old home of their childhood, and parted 
with parents and friends — never to meet 
again in this life — who went into the wilder- 
ness, willing to spend a life of toil among 
strangers, ready, if need be, to lay down their 
life as witnesses to the truth, as martyrs for 
the glory of God — the same religions are rich 
also in those honest and intrepid inquirers who, 
at the bidding of the same spirit of truth, were 
ready to leave behind them the cherished creed 
of their childhood, to separate from the friends 
they loved best, to stand alone among men 
that shrug their shoulders, and ask " What is 
truth ? " and to bear in silence a martyrdom 
more galling often than death itself. There 
are men who say that, if they held the whole 
truth in their hand, they would not open one 
finger. Such men know little of the working 
of the spirit of truth, of the true missionary 
spirit. As long as there is doubt and darkness 
and anxiety in the soul of an inquirer, reti- 
cence may be his natural attitude. But when 
once doubt has yielded to certainty, darkness 
to light, anxiety to joy, the rays of truth will 
burst forth ; and to close our hand or to shut 
our lips, would be as impossible as for the 
petals of a flower to shut themselves against 
the summons of the sun of spring. 

What is there in this short life that should 



LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 43 

seal our lips ? What should we wait for. if we 
are not to speak here and noiv ? There is mis- 
sionary work at home as much as abroad; 
there are thousands waiting to listen, if one 
man will but speak the truth, and nothing but 
the truth ; there are thousands starving, be- 
cause they cannot find that food which is con- 
venient for them. 

And even if the spirit of truth might be 
chained down by fear or prudence, the The spiritof 
spirit of love would never yield. Once love ' 
recognize the common brotherhood of man- 
kind, not as a name or a theory, but as a real 
bond, as a bond more binding, more lasting 
than the bonds of family, caste, and race, and 
the questions, Why should I open my hand ? 
Why should I open my heart ? Why should I 
speak to my brother ? will never be asked 
again. Is it not far better to speak than to 
walk through life silent, unknown, unknowing ? 
Has any one of us ever spoken to his friend, 
and opened to him his inmost soul, and been 
answered with harshness or repelled with 
scorn ? Has any one of us, be he priest or 
layman, ever listened to the honest question- 
ings of a truth-loving soul, without feeling his 
own soul filled with love ? aye, without feeling 
humbled by the very honesty of a brother's 
confession ? 



44 LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 

If we would but confess, friend to friend, if 
we would be but honest, man to man, we 
should not want confessors or confessionals. 

If our doubts and difficulties are self-made, 
if they can be removed by wiser and better 
men, why not give to our brother the oppor- 
tunity of helping us ? But if our difficulties 
are not self-made, if they are not due either to 
ignorance or presumption, is it not even then 
better for us to know that we are all carrying 
the same burden, the common burden of hu- 
manity, if haply we may find, that for the 
heavy laden there is but one who can give 
them rest. 

There may be times when silence is gold, 
and speech silver : but there are times also 
when silence is death, and speech is life — the 
very life of Pentecost. 

How can man be afraid of man ? How can 
we be afraid of those whom we love ? 

Are the young afraid of the old ? But noth- 
ing delights the older man more than to see 
that he is trusted by the young, and that they 
believe he will tell them the truth. 

Are the old afraid of the young ? But noth- 
ing sustains the young more than to know that 
they do not stand alone in their troubles, and 
that in many trials of the soul the father is as 
helpless as the child. 



LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 45 

Are women afraid of men ? But men are 
not wiser in the things appertaining to God 
than women, and real love of God is theirs far 
more than ours. 

Are men afraid of women ? But though 
women may hide their troubles more carefully, 
their heart aches as much as ours, when they 
whisper to themselves, " Lord, I believe, help 
thou my unbelief." 

Are the laity afraid of the clergy? But 
where is the clergyman who would not respect 
honest doubt more than unquestioning faith ? 

Are the clergy afraid of the laity ? But 
surely we know in this place that the clear 
voice of honesty and humility draws more 
hearts than the harsh accents of dogmatic as- 
surance or ecclesiastic exclusiveness. 

A missionary must know no fear ; his heart 
must overflow with love — love of man, love 
of truth, love of God ; and in this, the highest 
and truest sense of the word, every Christian 
is, or ought to be, a missionary. 

And now, let us look again at the religions in 
which the missionary spirit has been at The fate of 

. non-mission- 

work, and compare them with those m wy religions. 
which any attempt to convince others by argu- 
ment, to save souls, to bear witness to the truth, 
is treated with pity or scorn. The former are 
alive, the latter are dying or dead. 



46 LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 

The religion of Zoroaster, — the religion of 
zoroastri- Cyrus, of Darius and Xerxes, — which, 
amsm " but for the battles of Marathon and 
of Salamis, might have become the religion of 
the civilized world, is now professed by only 
100,000 souls — that is, by about a ten-thou- 
sandth part of the inhabitants of the world. 
During the last two centuries their number has 
steadily decreased from four to one hundred 
thousand, and another century will probably 
exhaust what is still left of the worshippers of 
the Wise Spirit, Ahuramazda. 

The Jews are about thirty times the number 
Judaism. of the Parsis, and they therefore rep- 
resent a more appreciable portion of mankind. 
Though it is not likely that they will ever in- 
crease in number, yet such is their physical 
vigor and their intellectual tenacity, such also 
their pride of race and their faith in Jehovah, 
that we can hardly imagine that their patri- 
archal religion and their ancient customs will 
soon vanish from the face of the earth. 

But though the religions of the Parsis and 
Brahman- Jews might justly seem to have paid 
the penalty of their anti-missionary 
spirit, how, it will be said, can the same be 
maintained with regard to the religion of the 
Brahmans ? That religion is still professed by 
at least 110,000,000 of human souls, and, to 



LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 47 

judge from the last census, even that enormous 
number falls much short of the real truth. And 
yet I do not shrink from saying that their reli- 
gion is dying or dead. And why ? Because it 
cannot stand the light of day. The worship of 
Siva, of Vishnu, and the other popular deities, 
is of the same, nay, in many cases of a more de- 
graded and savage character than the worship 
of Jupiter, Apollo, and Minerva ; it belongs to 
a stratum of thought which is long buried be- 
neath our feet ; it may live on, like the lion 
and the tiger, but the mere air of free thought 
and civilized life wall extinguish it. A religion 
may linger on for a long time, it may be ac- 
cepted by the large masses of the people, be- 
cause it is there, and there is nothing better. 
But when a religion has ceased to produce de- 
fenders of the faith, prophets, champions, mar- 
tyrs, it has ceased to live ; and in this sense 
Brahmanism has ceased to live for more than a 
thousand years. 

It is true there are millions of children, 
women, and men in India who fall down before 
the stone image of Vishnu, with his four arms, 
riding on a creature half bird, half man, or 
sleeping on the serpent ; who worship Siva, a 
monster with three eyes, riding naked on a 
bull, with a necklace of skulls for his ornament. 
There are human beings who still believe in a 



48 LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 

god of war, Kartikeya, with six faces, riding on 
a peacock, and holding bow and arrow in his 
hands ; and who invoke a god of success, Gan- 
esa, with four hands and an elephant's head, 
sitting on a rat. Nay, it is true that, in the 
broad daylight of the nineteenth century, the 
figure of the goddess Kali is carried through 
the streets of her own city, Calcutta, 8 her wild 
disheveled hair reaching to her feet, with a 
necklace of human heads, her tongue protruded 
from her mouth, her girdle stained with blood. 
All this is true ; but ask any Hindu who can 
read and write and think, whether these are 
the gods he believes in, and he will smile at 
your credulity. How long this living death of 
national religion in India may last, no one can 
tell : for our purposes, however, for gaining an 
idea of the issue of the great religious struggle 
of the future, that religion too is dead and 
gone. 

The three religions which are alive, and be- 
The three tween which the decisive battle for the 

living re- . 

Hgions. dominion of the world will have to be 
fought, are the three missionary religions, Bud- 
dhism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity. Though 
religious statistics are perhaps the most uncer- 
tain of all, yet it is well to have a general con- 
ception of the forces of our enemies ; and it is 
well to know T that, though the number of Chris- 



LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 49 

tians is double the number of Mohammedans, 
the Buddhist religion still occupies the first 
place in the religious census of mankind. 9 

Buddhism rules supreme in Central, North- 
ern, Eastern, and Southern Asia, and it grad- 
ually absorbs whatever there is left of aborig- 
inal heathenism in that vast and populous area. 

Mohammedanism claims as its own Arabia, 
Persia, great parts of India, Asia Minor, Turkey, 
and Egypt ; and its greatest conquests by mis- 
sionary efforts are made among the heathen 
population of Africa. 

Christianity reigns in Europe and America, 
and it is conquering the native races of Poly- 
nesia and Melanesia, while its missionary out- 
posts are scattered all over the world. 

Between these three powers, then, the re- 
ligious battle of the future, the Holy War of 
mankind will have to be fought, and is being 
fought at the present moment, though appar- 
ently with little effect. To convert a Moham- 
medan is difficult ; to convert a Buddhist, more 
difficult still ; to convert a Christian, let us 
hope, well nigh impossible. 

What then, it may be asked, is the use of 
missionaries ? Why should we spend 0bjects of 
millions on foreign missions, when misslons - 
there are children in our cities who are allowed 
to grow up in ignorance ? Why should we de- 

4 



50 LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 

prive ourselves of some of the noblest, boldest, 
most ardent and devoted spirits and send them 
into the wilderness, while so many laborers are 
wanted in the vineyard at home ? 

It is right to ask these questions ; and we 
ought not to blame those political economists 
who tell us that every convert costs us £200, 
and that at the present rate of progress it would 
take more than 200,000 years to evangelize the 
world. There is nothing at all startling in 
these figures. Every child born in Europe is 
as much a heathen as the child of a Melanesian 
cannibal; and it costs us more than £200 to 
turn a child into a Christian man. The other 
calculation is totally erroneous, for an intellect- 
ual harvest must not be calculated by adding 
simply grain to grain, but by counting each 
grain as a living seed, that will bring forth fruit 
a hundred and a thousand fold. 

If we want to know what work there is for 
patemai ^he missionary to do, what results we 
missions. ma y eX p ec fc from it, we must distin- 
guish between two kinds of work : the one is 
parental, the other controversial. Among unciv- 
ilized races the work of the missionary is the 
work of a parent ; whether his pupils are young 
in years or old, he has to treat them with a 
parent's love, to teach them with a parent's au- 
thority ; he has to win them, not to argue with 



LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 51 

them. I know this kind of missionary work is 
often despised ; it is called mere religious kid- 
napping ; and it is said that missionary success 
obtained by such means proves nothing for the 
truth of Christianity; that the child handed 
over to a Mohammedan would grow up a Mo- 
hammedan, as much as a child taken by a 
Christian missionary becomes a Christian. All 
this is true; missionary success obtained by such 
means proves nothing for the truth of our 
Creeds : but it proves, what is far more impor- 
tant, it proves Christian love. Read only the 
"Life of Patteson," the Bishop of Melanesia; 
follow him in his vessel, sailing from island to 
island, begging for children, carrying them off 
as a mother her new-born child, nursing them, 
washing and combing them, clothing them, 
feeding them, teaching them in his Episcopal 
Palace, in which he himself is everything, nurse 
and housemaid, and cook, school-master, physi- 
cian, and Bishop — read there, how that man 
who tore himself away from his aged father, 
from his friends, from his favorite studies and 
pursuits, had the most loving of hearts for these 
children, how indignantly he repelled for them 
the name of savages, how he trusted them, re- 
spected them, honored them, and when they 
were formed and established, took them back 
to their island homes, there to be a leaven for 



52 LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 

future ages. Yes, read the life, the work, the 
death of that man, a death in very truth, a ran- 
som for the sins of others — and then say 
whether you would like to suppress a profession 
that can call forth such self-denial, such heroism, 
such sanctity, such love. It has been my priv- 
ilege to have known some of the finest and 
noblest spirits which England has produced 
during this century, but there is none to whose 
memory I look up with greater reverence, none 
by whose friendship I feel more deeply humbled 
than by that of that true saint, that true mar- 
tyr, that truly parental missionary. 

The work of the parental missionary is clear, 
and its success undeniable, not only in Poly- 
nesia and Melanesia, but in many parts of 
India (think only of the bright light of Tin- 
nevelly), in Africa, in China, in America, in 
Syria, in Turkey, aye, in the very heart of Lon- 
don. 

The case is different with the controversial 
. , missionary, who has to attack the faith 

Controversial •/ 7 

missions. f men bought up in other religions, 
in religions which contain much truth, though 
mixed up with much error. Here the difficul- 
ties are immense, the results very discouraging. 
Nor need we wonder at this. We know, each 
of us, but too well, how little argument avails 
in theological discussion ; how often it produces 



LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 53 

the very opposite result of what we expected ; 
confirming rather than shaking opinions no less 
erroneous, no less indefensible, than many ar- 
ticles of the Mohammedan or Buddhist faith. 

And even when argument proves successful, 
when it forces a verdict from an unwilling 
judge, how often has the result been disap- 
pointing ; because in tearing up the rotten stem 
on which the tree rested, its tenderest fibres 
have been injured, its roots unsettled, its life 
destroyed. 

We have little ground to expect that these 
controversial weapons will carry the day in the 
struggle between the three great religions of 
the world. 

But there is a third kind of missionary ac- 
tivity, which has produced the most indirect in- 

. -. -, -, •, * . fluence of 

important results, and through which Christianity. 
alone, I believe, the final victory will be gained. 
Whenever two religions are brought into con- 
tact, when members of each live together in 
peace, abstaining from all direct attempts at 
conversion, whether by force or by argument, 
though conscious all the time of the fact that 
they and their religion are on their trial, that 
they are being watched, that they are respon- 
sible for all they say and do — the effect has 
always been the greatest blessing to both. It 
calls out all the best elements in each, and at 



54 LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 

the same time keeps under all that is felt to be 
of doubtful value, of uncertain truth. When- 
ever this has happened in the history of the 
world, it has generally led ^either to the reform 
of both systems, or to the foundation of a new 
religion. 

When after the conquest of India the vio- 
e lent measures for the conversion of 

Influence of 

^n°ism m on ed " the Hindus to Mohammedanism had 

Brahmanism. -i i^/ri i -it»t 

ceased, and Mohammedans and Jbrah- 
mans lived together in the enjoyment of per- 
fect equality, the result was a purified Moham- 
medanism, and a purified Brahmanism. 10 The 
worshippers of Vishnu, Siva, and other deities 
became ashamed of these mythological gods ; 
and were led to admit that there was, either 
over and above these individual deities, or in- 
stead of them, a higher divine power (the 
Para-Brahma), the true source of all being, the 
only and almighty ruler of the world. That 
religious movement assumed its most important 
development at the beginning of the twelfth 
century, when Kamanuga founded the reformed 
sect of the worshippers of Vishnu ; and again, 
in the fourteenth century, when his fifth suc- 
cessor, Bamananda, imparted a still more liberal 
character to that powerful sect. Not only did 
he abolish many of the restrictions of caste, 
many of the minute ceremonial observances in 



LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 55 

eating, drinking, and bathing, but he replaced 
the classical Sanskrit — which was unintelligible 
to the large masses of the people — by the liv- 
ing vernaculars, in which he preached a purer 
worship of God. 

The most remarkable man of that time was a 
weaver, the pupil of Ramananda, known Kabir. 
by the name of Kabir. He indeed deserved 
the name which the members of the reformed 
sect claimed for themselves, AvadMta, which 
means one who has shaken off the dust of su- 
perstition. He broke entirely with the popular 
mythology and the customs of the ceremonial 
law, and addressed himself alike to Hindu and 
Mohammedan. According to him, there is but 
one God, the creator of the world, without 
beginning and end, of inconceivable purity, and 
irresistible strength. The pure man is the 
image of God, and after death attains commu- 
nity with God. The commandments of Kabir 
are few : Not to injure anything that has life, 
for life is of God ; to speak the truth ; to keep 
aloof from the world ; to obey the teacher. 
His poetry is most beautiful, hardly surpassed 
in any other language. 

Still more important in the history of India 
was the reform of Nanak, the founder AT . 

7 Nanak, 

of the Sikh religion. He, too, worked s Z n " 
entirely in the spirit of Kabir. Both reisl0n ' 



56 LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 

labored to persuade the Hindus and Moham- 
medans that the truly essential parts of their 
creeds were the same, that they ought to discard 
the varieties of practical detail, and the cor- 
ruptions of their teachers, for the worship of 
the One Only Supreme, whether he was termed 
Allah or Vishnu. 

The effect of these religious reforms has been 
highly beneficial; it has cut into the very roots 
of idolatry, and has spread throughout India an 
intelligent and spiritual worship, which may at 
any time develop into a higher national creed. 

The same effect which Mohammedanism pro- 
duced on Hinduism is now being pro- 
influence <-> j- 

i ? ty C on ri Brah" duced in a much higher degree on the 

religious mind of India by the mere 

presence of Christianity. That silent influence 

began to tell many years ago, even at a time 

when no missionaries were allowed within the 

territory of the old East India Corn- 
Ram Mo turn •* 

ttiJ Brahma- pany. Its first representative was Ram 
samaj. Mohun Roy. born just one hundred 
years ago, in 1772, who died at Bristol in 1833, 
the founder of the Brahma-Samaj. A man so 
highly cultivated and so highly religious as he 
was, could not but feel humiliated at the spec- 
tacle which the popular religion of his country 
presented to his English friends. He drew 
their attention to the fact that there was a 



LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 57 

purer religion to be found in the old sacred 
writings of his people, the Vedas. He went so 
far as to claim for the Vedas a divine origin, and 
to attempt the foundation of a reformed faith 
on their authority. In this attempt he failed. 
No doubt the Vedas and other works of the 
ancient poets and prophets of India Inspiration 
contain treasures of truth, which ought of theVedas - 
never to be forgotten, least of all by the sons 
of India. The late good Bishop Cotton, in his 
address to the students of a missionary institu- 
tion at Calcutta, advised them to use a certain 
hymn of the Rig- Veda in their daily prayers. 11 
Nowhere do we find stronger arguments against 
idolatry, nowhere has the unity of the Deity 
been upheld more strenuously against the 
errors of polytheism than by some of the 
ancient sages of India. Even in the oldest of 
their sacred books, the Rig- Veda, composed 
three or four thousand years ago — where we 
find hymns addressed to the different deities of 
the sky, the air, the earth, the rivers — the 
protest of the human heart against many gods, 
breaks forth from time to time with no uncer- 
tain sound. One poet, after he has asked to 
whom sacrifice is due, answers, " to Him who is 
God above all gods." 12 Another poet, after 
enumerating the names of many deities, affirms, 
without hesitation, that " these are all but names 



58 LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 

of Him who is One." And even when single 
deities are invoked, it is not difficult to see that, 
in the mind of the poet, each one of the names 
is meant to express the highest conception of 
deity of which the human mind was then capable. 
The god of the sky is called Father and Mother 
and Friend ; he is the Creator, the Upholder of 
the Universe ; he rewards virtue and punishes 
sin ; he listens to the prayers of those who love 
him. 

But granting all this, we may well understand 
why an attempt to claim for these books a 
divine origin, and thus to make them an artifi- 
cial foundation for a new religion, failed. The 
successor of Ram Mohun Roy, the present head 
of the Brahma-Samaj, the wise and excellent 
Debendranath Tagore, was for a time even 
more decided in holding to the Vedas as the 
Deben- sole foundation of the new faith. But 

dranath 

Tagore. this could not last. As soon as the 
true character of the Vedas, 13 which but few 
people in India can understand, became known, 
partly through the efforts of native, partly of 
European scholars, the Indian reformers re- 
linquished the claim of divine inspiration in 
favor of their Vedas, and were satisfied with 
a selection of passages from the works of the 
ancient sages of India, to express and embody 
the creed which the members of the Brahma- 
Samaj hold in common. 14 



LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 59 

The work which these religious reformers 
have been doing in India is excellent, and those 
only who know w 7 hat it is, in religious matters, 
to break with the past, to forsake the established 
custom of a nation, to oppose the rush of public 
opinion, to brave adverse criticism, to submit 
to social persecution, can form any idea of 
what those men have suffered, in bearing wit- 
ness to the truth that was within them. 

They could not reckon on any sympathy on 
the part of Christian Missionaries ; nor schism in 

.the Brahma- 
did their work attract much attention samaj. 

in Europe till very lately, when a schism broke 
out in the Brahma-Samaj between the old con- 
servative party and a new party, led by Keshub 
Chuncler Sen. The former, though wil- Keshub 

° Chunder 

ling to surrender all that was clearly Sen - 
idolatrous in the ancient religion and customs 
of India, wished to retain all that might safely 
be retained : it did not wish to see the religion 
of India denationalized. The other party, in- 
spired and led by Keshub Chunder Sen, went 
further in their zeal for religious purity. All 
that smacked of the old leaven was to be sur- 
rendered ; not only caste, but even that sacred 
cord — the religious riband which makes and 
marks the Brahman, which is to remind him at 
every moment of his life, and whatever work he 
may be engaged in, of his God, of his ancestors, 



60 LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 

and of his children — even that was to be aban- 
doned; and instead of founding their creed 
exclusively on the utterances of the ancient 
sages of their own country, all that was best in 
the sacred books of the whole world, was se- 
lected and formed into a new sacred Code. 

The schism between these two parties is 
deeply to be deplored ; but it is a sign of life. 
It augurs success rather than failure for the 
future. It is the same schism which St. Paul 
had to heal in the Church of Corinth, and he 
healed it with the words, so often misunder- 
stood, " Knowledge pufFeth up, but charity 
edifieth." 

In the eyes of our missionaries this religious 
Relation reform in India has not found much 

of Mission- ~ _ . 

aries to the tavor : nor need we wonder at this. 

Brahma- 

samaj. Their object is to transplant, if possible, 
Christianity in its full integrity from England 
to India,' as we might wish to transplant a full- 
grown tree. They do not deny the moral 
worth, the noble aspirations, the self-sacrificing 
zeal of these native reformers ; but they fear 
that all this will but increase their dangerous 
influence, and retard the progress of Christian- 
ity, by drawing some of the best minds of India, 
that might have been gained over to our religion, 
into a different current. They feel towards 
Keshub Chunder Sen as Athanasius might have 



LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 61 

felt towards Ulfilas, the Arian Bishop of the 
Goths : and yet, what would have become of 
Christianity in Europe but for those Gothic 
races, but for those Arian heretics, who were 
considered more dangerous than downright 
pagans ? 

If we think of the future of India, and of the 
influence which that country has al- _ , 

J Brahraa- 

ways exercised on the East, the move- SSSfii to 

• /» i* • n i • i a new creed. 

ment of religious reform which is now 
going on, appears to my mind the most mo- 
mentous in this momentous century. If our mis- 
sionaries feel constrained to repudiate it as their 
own work, history will be more just to them 
than they themselves. 15 And if not as the work 
of Christian missionaries, it will be recognized 
hereafter as the work of those missionary Chris- 
tians who have lived in India, as examples of a 
true Christian life, who have approached the na- 
tives in a truly missionary spirit, in the spirit 
of truth and in the spirit of love ; whose bright 
presence has thawed the ice, and brought out 
beneath it the old soil, ready to blossom into 
new life. These Indian puritans are not against 
us ; for all the highest purposes of life they 
are with us, and we, I trust, w T ith them. What 
would the early Christians have said to men, 
outside the pale of Christianity, who spoke of 
Christ and his doctrine as some of these Indian 



62 LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 

reformers ? Would they have said to them, 
" Unless you speak our language and think 
our thoughts, unless you respect our Creed 
and sign our Articles, we can have nothing in 
common with you." 

that Christians, and particularly missiona- 
„. . . ries, would lay to heart the words of a 

Missionaries y J 

Squire°too missionary Bishop ! 16 "I have for 
years thought," writes Bishop Patteson, 
" that we seek in our Missions a great deal too 
much to make English Christians. . . . Evi- 
dently the heathen man is not treated fairly, 
if we encumber our message with unnecessary 
requirements. The ancient Church had its 
c selection of fundamentals.' . . . Any one can 
see what mistakes we have made in India. . . . 
Few men think themselves into the state of 
the Eastern mind. . . . We seek to denational- 
ize these races, as far as I can see ; whereas 
we ought surely to change as little as possible 
— only what is clearly incompatible with the 
simplest form of Christian teaching and prac- 
tice. I do not mean that we are to compro- 
mise truth .... but do we not overlay it a 
good deal with human traditions ! " 
w . u - If we had many such missionaries as 

Bishop Pat- ** 

sXpcot- Bishop Patteson and Bishop Cotton, 

if Christianity were not only preached, 

but lived in that spirit, it would then prove 



LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 63 

itself what it is — the religion of humanity at 
large, large enough itself to take in all shades 
and diversities of character and race. 

And more than that — if this true missionary 
spirit, this spirit of truth and love, of forbear- 
ance, of trust, of toleration, of humility, were 
once to kindle the hearts of all those chivalrous 
ambassadors of Christ, the message of the Gos- 
pel which they have to deliver would then 
become as great a blessing to the giver as to 
the receiver. Even now, missionary work unites, 
both at home and abroad, those who are widely 
separated by the barriers of theological sects. 17 

It might do so far more still. When we 
stand before a common enemy, w r e „. . 

** 7 Missionary 

soon forget our own small feuds. But £°ndof 
why ? Often, I fear, from motives of l 
prudence only and selfishness. Can we not, 
then, if we stand in spirit before a common 
friend — can we not, before the face of God, 
forget our small feuds, for very shame ? If 
missionaries admit to their fold converts who 
can hardly understand the equivocal abstrac- 
tions of our Creeds and formulas, is it necessary 
to exclude those who understand them but too 
well to submit the wings of their free spirit to 
such galling chains ? When we try to think of 
the majesty of God, what are all those formulas 
but the stammerings of children, which only a 



64 LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 

loving father can interpret and understand ! 
The fundamentals of our religion are not in 
these poor Creeds ; true Christianity lives, not 
in our belief, but in our love — in our love of 
God, and in our love of man, founded on our love of 
God. 

That is the whole Law and the Prophets, 
True Chris- ^ a ^ * s ^ e religion to be preached to 
tianity ' the whole world, that is the Gospel 
which will conquer all other religions — even 
Buddhism and Mohammedanism — which will 
w r in the hearts of all men. 

There can never be too much love, though 
there may be too much faith — particularly 
when it leads to the requirement of exactly 
the same measure of faith in others. Let those 
who wish for the true success of missionary 
work learn to throw in of the abundance of 
their faith ; let them learn to demand less from 
others than from themselves. That is the best 
offering, the most valuable contribution which 
they can make to-day to the missionary cause. 

Let missionaries preach the Gospel again as 
it was preached when it began the conquest of 
the Roman Empire and the Gothic nations ; 
when it had to struggle with powers and princi- 
palities, with time-honored religions and tri- 
umphant philosophies, with pride of civilization 
and savagery of life — and yet came out vie- 



LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 65 

torious. At that time conversion was not a 
question to be settled by the acceptance or re- 
jection of certain formulas or articles ; a sim- 
ple prayer was often enough : u God be merci- 
ful to me a sinner." 

There is one kind of faith that revels in 
words, there is another that can hardly Two kiuds 
find utterance : the former is like riches of faith ' 
that come to us by inheritance ; the latter is 
like the daily bread, which each of us has to 
win in the sweat of his brow. We cannot ex- 
pect the former from new converts ; we ought 
not to expect it or to exact it, for fear that it 
might lead to hypocrisy or superstition. The 
mere believing of miracles, the mere repeat- 
ing of formulas, requires no effort in converts 
brought up to believe in the Puranas of the 
Brahmans or the Buddhist Gatakas. They find 
it much easier to accept a legend than to love 
God, to repeat a creed than to forgive their 
enemies. In this respect they are exactly like 
ourselves. Let missionaries remember that the 
Christian faith at home is no longer what it 
was, and that it is impossible to have one creed 
to preach abroad, another to preach at home. 
Much that was formerly considered as essential 
is now neglected ; much that was formerly neg- 
lected is now considered as essential. I think 
of the laity more than of the clergy: but what 



66 LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 

would the clergy be without the laity ? There 
are many of our best men, men of the greatest 
power and influence in literature, science, art, 
politics, aye, even in the Church itself, who are 
no longer Christian in the old sense of the 
word. Some imagine they have ceased to be 
Christians altogether, because they feel that 
they cannot believe as much as others profess 
to believe. We cannot afford to lose these 
men, nor shall we lose them if we learn to be 
satisfied with what satisfied Christ and the 
Apostles, with what satisfies many a hard-work- 
ing missionary. If Christianity is to retain its 
hold on Europe and America, if it is to conquer 
in the Holy War of the future, it must throw 
off its heavy armor, the helmet of brass, and 
the coat of mail, and face the world like David, 
with his staff, his stones, and his sling. We 
want less of creeds, but more of trust ; less of 
ceremony, but more of work ; less of solemnity, 
but more of genial honesty; less of doctrine, 
but more of love. There is a faith, as small as 
a grain of mustard-seed, but that grain alone 
can move mountains, and more than that, it 
can move hearts. Whatever the world may say 
of us, of us of little faith, let us remember that 
there was one who accepted the offering of the 
poor widow. She threw in but two mites, but 
that was all she had, even all her living. 



NOTES. 



1 Different systems of classification applied to the re- 
ligions of the world are discussed in my " Introduction to 
the Science of Religion/' pp. 122-143. 

2 " Proselyto ne fidas usque ad vigesimam quartam gen- 
erationem." Jalkut Ruth, f. 163, d. ; Danz, in Meuschen, 
"Nov. Test, ex Talm. illustr." p. 651. 

3 " India, Progress and Condition," Blue Book presented 
to Parliament, 1873, p. 99. " It is asserted (but the asser- 
tion must be taken with reserve) that it is a mistake to 
suppose that the Hindu religion is not proselytizing. Any 
number of outsiders, so long as they do not interfere with 
established castes, can form a new caste, and call themselves 
Hindus, and the Brahmans are always ready to receive all 
who submit to and pay them." 

4 Cf. Mahavanso, cap. 5. 

5 Cf. Mahavanso, cap. 12. 

6 In some of the places mentioned by the " Chronicle " 
as among the earliest stations of Buddhist missions, relics 
have been discovered containing the names of the very mis- 
sionaries mentioned by the " Chronicle." See Koeppen, 
" Die Religion des Buddha," p. 188. 

7 " Islam is the verbal noun, and Moslim the participle of 
the same root which also yields Salam, peace, and salim and 
satym, whole, honest. Islam means, therefore, to satisfy or 
pacify by forbearance ; it also means simply subjection." 
Sprenger, "Mohammad," i. p. 69; iii. 486. 

8 Lassen, " Indische Alterthumskunde," vol. iv. p. 635. 



68 NOTES. 

9 " Chips from a German Workshop/' vol. i. ; " Essays 
on the Science of Religion," pp. 161, 216. 

10 Lassen, " Indische Alterthumskunde," vol. iv. p. 606. 
Wilson, "Asiatic Researches," xvi. p. 21. 

11 See " Brahmic Questions of the Day," 1869, p. 16. 

12 " History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature," by M. M. 
(2d ed.), p. 569. 

13 u t^q Adi Brahma-Samaj, Its Views and Principles," 
Calcutta, 1870, p. 10. 

14 « ^ Brief History of the Calcutta Brahma-Samaj, 
1868," p. 15. 

15 The "Indian Mirror" (Sept. 10, 1869) constantly 
treats of missionary efforts of various kinds in a spirit 
which is not only friendly, but even desirous of reciprocal 
sympathy ; and hopeful that whatever differences may exist 
between them (the missionaries) and the Brahmos, the two 
parties will heartily combine as brethren to exterminate 
idolatry, and promote true morality in India. 

Many of our ministers and leading men, says the " Indian 
Mirror," are recruited from missionary schools, which, by 
affording religious education, prove more favorable to the 
growth and spread of Brahmoism than Government schools 
with Comte and Secularism (" Indian Theism," by S. D. 
Collet, 1870, p. 22). 

16 " Life of John Coleridge Patteson," by C. M. Yonge, 
ii. p. 167. 

17 The large body of European and American mission- 
aries settled in India bring their various moral influences 
to bear upon the country with the greater force, because 
they act together with a compactness which is but little un- 
derstood. Though belonging to various denominations of 
Christians, yet from the nature of their work, their isolated 
position, and their long experience, they have been led to 
think rather of the numerous questions on which they agree, 
than of those on which they differ, and they cooperate 



NOTES. 69 

heartily together. Localities are divided among them by 
friendly arrangements, and, with a few exceptions, it is a 
fixed rule among them that they will not interfere with each 
other's converts and each other's spheres of duty. School 
books, translations of the Scriptures and - religious works, 
prepared by various missions, are used in common ; and 
help and improvements secured by one mission are freely 
placed at the command of all. The large body of mission- 
aries resident in each of the presidency towns form mission- 
ary conferences, hold periodic meetings, and act together on 
public matters. They have frequently addressed the Indian 
Government on important social questions involving the 
welfare of the native community, and have suggested val- 
uable improvements in existing laws. During the past 
twenty years, on Ave occasions, general conferences have 
been held for mutual consultation respecting their mission- 
ary work ; and in January last, at the latest of these gath- 
erings, at Allahabad, 121 missionaries met together, belong- 
ing to twenty different societies, and including several men 
of long experience who have been twenty years in India 
("India, Progress and Condition," 1873, p. 124). 



The Schism in the Brahma- Samaj. 1 

The present position of the two parties in the Brahma- 
Samaj is well described by Rajnarain Bose (the " Adi 
Brahmo Samaj," Calcutta, 1873, p. 11). "The particular 
opinions above referred to can be divided into two compre- 
hensive classes — conservative and progressive. The con- 

1 Brahma-Samaj, the Church, of Brahma, is the general title. When 
the schism took place, the original Samaj was called Adi Brahma-Samaj, 
i. e., the First Church of Brahma, while the progressive party under Keshub 
Chunder Sen was distinguished by the name of the Brahma-Samaj of India. 
The vowels u and o are often the same in Bengali, and are sometimes used 
for a. 



70 NOTES. 

servative Brahmos are those who are unwilling to push re- 
ligious and social reformation to any great extreme. They 
are of opinion that reformation should be gradual, the law 
of gradual progress being universally prevalent in nature. 
They also say that the principle of Brahmic harmony re- 
quires a harmonious discharge of all our duties, and that, 
as it is a duty to take a part in reformation, so there are 
other duties to perform, namely, those towards parents and 
society, and that we should harmonize all these duties as 
much as we can. However unsatisfactory such arguments 
may appear to a progressive Brahmo, they are such as 
could not be slighted at first sight. They are certainly such 
as to make the conservative Brahmo think sincerely that he 
is justified in not pushing religious and social reformation 
to any great extreme. The progressive Brahmo cannot 
therefore call him a hypocrite. A union of both the 
conservative and the progressive elements in the Brahmo 
church is necessary for its stability. The conservative ele- 
ment will prevent the progressive from spoiling the cause 
of reformation by taking premature and abortive measures 
for advancing that cause ; the progressive element will pre- 
vent the conservative from proving a stolid obstruction to 
it. The conservative element will serve as a link between 
the progressive element and the orthodox community, and 
prevent the progressive Brahmo from being completely es- 
tranged from that community, as the native Christians are ; 
while the progressive element will prevent the conservative 
from remaining inert and being absorbed by the orthodox 
community. The common interests of Brahmo Dharma 
should lead both classes to respect, and be on amicable 
terms with, each other. It is true the progressive of the 
present half century will prove the conservative of the next ; 
but there could never come a time when the two classes 
would cease to exist in the bosom of the church. She 
should, like a wise mother, make them live in peace with 
each other, and work harmoniously together for her benefit. 



NOTES. 71 

" As idolatry is intimately interwoven with our social 
fabric, conservative Brahmos, though discarding it in other 
respects, find it very difficult to do so on the occasion of 
such very important domestic ceremonies as marriage, 
shradh (ancestral sacrifices), and upanayana (spiritual ap- 
prenticing) ; but they should consider that Brahmoism is 
not so imperative on any other point as on the renunciation 
of idolatry. It can allow conservatism in other respects, 
but not on the point of idolatry. It can consider a man a 
Brahmo if he be conservative in other respects than idol- 
atry ; but it can never consider an idolater to be a Brahmo. 
The conservative Brahmo can do one thing, that is, observe 
the old ritual, leaving out only the idolatrous portion of it, 
if he do not choose to follow the positive Brahmo ritual 
laid down in the Anushthana Paddhati. Liberty should be 
given by the progressive Brahmo to the conservative 
Brahmo in judging of the idolatrous character of the por- 
tions of the old ritual rejected by him. If a progressive 
Brahmo requires a conservative one to reject those j)ortions 
which the former considers to be idolatrous, but the latter 
does not, he denies liberty of conscience to a fellow- 
Brahmo. 

" The Adi Brahmo-Samaj is the national Hindu Theistic 
Church, whose principles of church reformation we have 
been describing above. Its demeanor towards the old re- 
ligion of the country is friendly, but corrective and reform- 
ative. It is this circumstance which preeminently distin- 
guishes it from the Brahmo-Samaj of India, whose attitude 
to that religion is antagonistic and offensive. The mission 
of the Adi Samaj is to fulfill the old religion, and not to 
destroy it. The attitude of the Adi Samaj to the old re- 
ligion is friendly, but it is not at the same time opposed to 
progress. It is a mistake to call it a conservative church. 
It is rather a conservative progressive church, or, more cor- 
rectly, simply a church or religious body, leaving matters of 



72 NOTES. 

social reformation to the judgments of individual members 
or bodies of such members. It contains both progressive 
and conservative members. As the ultra-progressive Brah- 
mos, who wanted to eliminate the conservative element from 
it, were obliged to secede from it, so if a high conservative 
party arise in its bosom which would attempt to do violence 
to the progressive element and convert the church into a 
partly conservative one, that party also would be obliged to 
secede from it. Only men who can be tolerant of each oth- 
er's opinions, and who can respect each other's earnest con- 
victions, progressive and conservative, can remain its mem- 
bers." 

The strong national feeling of the Indian reformers finds 
expression in the following passage from " Brahmic Ques- 
tions," p. 9 : — 

" A Samaj is accessible to all. The minds of the major- 
ity of our countrymen are not deeply saturated with Chris- 
tian sentiments. What would they think of a Brahmo 
minister who would quote on the Yedi (altar) sayings from 
the Bible ? Would they not from that time conceive an in- 
tolerable hatred towards Brahmoism and everything Brah- 
mo ? If quoting a sentence from the Bible or Koran offend 
our countrymen, we shall not do so. Truth is as catholic 
when taken from the Sastras as from the Koran or the 
Bible. True liberality consists, not in quoting texts from 
the religious Scriptures of other nations, but in bringing 
up, as we advance, the rear who are groveling in ignorance 
and superstition. We certainly do not act against the dic- 
tates of conscience, if we quote texts from the Hindu Sas- 
tras only, and not from all the religious Scriptures of all the 
countries on the face of the globe. Moreover, there is not 
a single saying in the Scriptures of other nations, which has 
not its counterpart in the Sastras." 

And again in " The Adi Brahma Samaj, Its Views and 
Principles," p. 1 : — 



NOTES. 73 

u The members of the Adi Samaj, aiming to diffuse the 
truths of Theism among their own nation, the Hindus, have 
naturally adopted a Hindu mode of propagation, just as an 
Arab Theist would adopt an Arabian mode of propagation, 
and a Chinese Theist a Chinese one. Such differences in 
the aspect of Theism in different countries must naturally 
arise from the usual course of things, but they are adven- 
titious, not essential, national, not sectarian. Although 
Brahmoism is universal religion, it is impossible to commu- 
nicate a universal form to it. It must wear a particular 
form in a particular country. A so-called universal form 
would make it appear grotesque and ridiculous to the nation 
or religious denomination among whom it is intended to be 
propagated, and would not command their veneration. In 
conformity with such views, the Adi Samaj has adopted a 
Hindu form to propagate Theism among Hindus. It has 
therefore retained many innocent Hindu usages and cus- 
toms, and has adopted a form of divine service containing 
passages extracted from the Hindu Sastras only, a book of 
Theistic texts containing selections from those sacred books 
only, and a ritual containing as much of the ancient form 
as could be kept consistently with the dictates of con- 
science." 



Extracts from Keshub Chunder Sen's Lecture on Christ and 
Christianity, 1870. 

" Why have I cherished respect and reverence for Christ ? 
.... Why is it that, though I do not take the name of 
u Christian," I still persevere in offering my hearty thanks- 
givings to Jesus Christ ? There must be something in the 
life and death of Christ, — there must be something in his 
great gospel which tends to bring comfort and light and 
strength to a heart heavy-laden with iniquity and wickedness* 
.... I studied Christ ethically, nay, spiritually, — and I 



74 NOTES. 

studied the Bible also in the same spirit, and I must ac- 
knowledge candidly and sincerely that I owe a great deal 
to Christ and to the gospel of Christ. . . . 

"My first inquiry was, What is the creed taught in the 
Bible? . . . Must I go through all the dogmas and doc- 
trines which constitute Christianity in the eye of the various 
sects, or is there something simple which I can at once 
grasp and turn to account ? 

" I found Christ spoke one language and Christianity an- 
other. I went to him prepared to hear what he had to say, 
and was immensely gratified when he told me : i Love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with 
all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself ; ' and then he added, ' This is the whole law 
and the prophets/ in other words, the whole philosophy, 
theology, and ethics of the law and the prophets are con- 
centrated in these two great doctrines of love to God and 
love to man ; and then elsewhere he said, ' This do and ye 
shall inherit everlasting life.' .... If we love God and 
love man we become Christ-like, and so attain everlasting 
life. 

" Christ never demanded from me worship or adoration 

that is due to God, the Creator of the Universe He 

places himself before me as the spirit I must imbibe in or- 
der to approach the Divine Father, as the great Teacher 
and guide who will lead me to God. 

" There are some persons who believe that if we pass 
through the ceremony of baptism and sacrament, we shall 
be accepted by God, but if you accept baptism as an out- 
ward rite, you cannot thereby render your life acceptable to 
God, for Christ wants something internal, a complete con- 
version of the heart, a giving up the yoke of mammon and 
accepting the yoke of religion, and truth, and God. He 
wants us to baptize our hearts not with cold water, but with 
the fire of religious and spiritual enthusiasm ; he calls upon 



NOTES. 75 

us not to go through any outward rite, but to make baptism 
a ceremony of the heart, a spiritual enkindling of all our 
energies, of all our loftiest and most heavenly aspirations 
and activities. That is true baptism. So with regard to 
the doctrine of the Sacrament. There are many who eat 
the bread and drink the wine at the Sacramental table, and 
go through the ceremony in the most pious and fervent 
spirit, but, after all, what does the real Sacrament mean ? 
If men simply adopt it as a tribute of respect and honor to 
Christ, shall he be satisfied ? Shall they themselves be sat- 
isfied ? Can we look upon them as Christians simply be- 
cause they have gone through this rite regularly for twenty 
or fifty years of their lives ? I think not. Christ demands 
of us absolute sanctification and purification of the heart. 
In this matter, also, I see Christ on one side, and Christian 
sects on the other. 

" What is that bread which Christ asked his disciples to 
eat ? what that wine which he asked them to taste ? Any 
man who has simple intelligence in him, would at once 
come to the conclusion that all this was metaphorical, and 
highly and eminently spiritual. Now, are you prepared to 
accept Christ simply as an outward Christ, an outward 
teacher, an external atonement and propitiation, or will you 
prove true to Christ by accepting his solemn injunctions in 
their spiritual importance and weight ? He distinctly says, 
every follower of his must eat his flesh and drink his blood. 
If we eat, bread is converted into strength and health, and 
becomes the means of prolonging our life ; so, spiritually, 
if we take truth into our heart, if we put Christ into the 
soul, we assimilate the spirit of Christ to our spiritual being, 
and then we find Christ incorporated into our existence and 
converted into spiritual strength, and health, and joy, and 
blessedness. Christ wants something that will amount to 
self-sacrifice, a casting away of the old man and a new 
growth in the heart. I thus draw a line of demarkation 



76 NOTES. 

between the visible and outward Christ and the invisible 
and inward Christ, between bodily Christ and spiritual 
Christ, between the Christ of images and pictures, and the 
Christ that grows in the heart, between dead Christ and 
living Christ, between Christ that lived and that was, and 
Christ that does live and that is. . . . 

" To be a Christian then is to be Christ-like. Chris- 
tianity means becoming like Christ, not acceptance 
Christ as a proposition or as an outward representation, but 
spiritual conformity with the life and character of Christ. 
And what is Christ? By Christ I understand one who 
said, ' Thy will be done ; ' and when I talk of Christ, I 
talk of that spirit of loyalty to God, that spirit of absolute 
determinedness and preparedness to say at all times and in 
all circumstances, i Thy will be done, not mine.' . . . 

" This prayer about forgiving an enemy and loving an 
enemy, this transcendental doctrine of love of man, is really 
sweet to me, and when I think of that blessed Man of God, 
crucified on the cross, and uttering those blessed words, 
6 Father, forgive them, they know not what they do ; ' oh ! 
I feel that I must love that being, I feel that there is some- 
thing within me which is touched by these sweet and heav- 
enly utterances, I feel that I must love Christ, let Christians 
say what they like against me ; that Christ I must love, for 
he preached love for an enemy. . . . 

" When every individual man becomes Christian in spirit, 
— repudiate the name, if you like, — when every individual 
man becomes as prayerful as Christ was, as loving and for- 
giving towards enemies as Christ was, as self-sacrificing as 
Christ was, then these little units, these little individual- 
ities, will coalesce and combine together by the natural af- 
finity of their hearts ; and these new creatures, reformed, 
regenerated, in the child-like and Christ-like spirit of devo- 
tion and faith, will feel drawn towards each other, and they 
shall constitute a real Christian church, a real Christian na- 



NOTES. 77 

tion. Allow me, friends, to say, England is not yet a Chris- 
tian nation." 



Extracts from a Catechism issued by a member of the Adi 
Brahmo-Samaj. 

Q. Who is the deity of the Brahmos? 
A. The One True God, one only without a second, whom 
all Hindu Sastras proclaim. 

Q. What is the divine worship of the Brahmos ? 
A. Loving God, and doing the works He loveth. 
Q. What is the temple of the Brahmos ? 
A. The pure heart. 

Q. What are the ceremonial observances of the Brahmos ? 
A. Good works. 

Q. What is the sacrifice of the Brahmos ? 
A. Renunciation of selfishness. 
Q. What are the austerities of the Brahmos ? 
A. Not committing sin. The Mahabharata says, He who 
does not commit sin in mind, speech, action, or understand- 
ing, performs austerities ; not he who drieth up his body. 
Q. What is the place of pilgrimage of the Brahmos ? 
A. The company of the good. 
Q. What is the Veda of the Brahmos ? 
A. Divine knowledge. It is superior to all Vedas. The 
Veda itself says : The inferior knowledge is the Rig Veda, 
the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda, the Atharva Veda, etc. ; 
the superior knowledge is that which treats of God. 
Q. WTiat is the most sacred formula of the Brahmos ? 
A. Be good and do good. 
Q. Who is the true Brahman ? 

A. He who knows Brahma. The Brihadaranyaka-Upani- 
shad says : He who departs from this world knowing God, 
is a Brahman. (See " Brahmic Questions of the Day,'' 
1869). 



HwINBTTRGH REVIEW. — "The BEST History of the Roman Republic." 
LONDON" TIMES. — "BY FAR THE BEST History of the Decline and l*rt 
of the Roman Commonwealth." 



THE 



jitsfonj of Motnt, 

FROM THE EARLIEST TIME TO THE PERIOD OF ITS DECLINE. 

By Dr. THEODOK MOMMSEN. 

Translated, with the author's sanction and additions, by the Rev. W. P. Dickson, Regius 
Professor of Biblical Criticism in the University of Glasgow, late Classical Examiner in 
the University of St. Andrews. With an Introduction by Dr. Leonhard Schmitz, and 
a copious Index of the whole four volumes, prepared especially for this edition. 

REPRINTED FROM THE REVISED LONDON EDITION 

Four Volumes crown 8vo. Price per volume, $2.00. 



Dr. Mommsen has long been known and appreciated through his researches 
into the languages, laws, and institutions of Ancient Rome and Italy, as 
the most thoroughly versed scholar now living in these departments of his- 
torical investigation. To a wonderfully exact and exhaustive knowledge of 
these subjects, he unites great powers of generalization, a vigorous, spirited, 
and exceedingly graphic style and keen analytical powers, which give this 
iristory a degree of interest and a permanent value possessed by no other 
record of the decline and fall of the Roman Commonwealth. " Dr. 
Mommsen's work," as Dr. Schmitz remarks in the introduction, " though 
the production of a man of most profound and extensive learning and 
knowledge of the world, is not as much designed for the professionai 
scholar as for intelligent readers of all classes who take an interest in the his* 
tory of by-gone ages, and are inclined there to seek information that may 
guide them safely through the perplexing mazes of modern history." 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

" A. work of the very highest merit ; its learning is exact and profound ; its narrative fall 
d° genius and skill ; its descriptions of men are admirably vivid. We wish to place on 
record our opinion that Dr. Mommsen's is by far the best history of the Decline and Fall 
of the Roman Commonwealth." — London Times. 

*' Since the days of Niebuhr, no work on Roman History has appeared that combines so 
much to attract, instruct, and charm the reader. Its style — a rare quality in a German au- 
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"This is the best history of the Roman Republic, taking the work on the whole— the 
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viucb he inspires in every portion of his book. He is without an eaual in his own sphere.* 

-Edinburgh Review. 

" A book of deepest interest"— Dean Trench. 



ANOTHER GREAT HISTORICAL WORK. 



%s>\* Ijfisforg of (JrfFrF, 

By Prof. Dr. ERNST CURTIUS. 

Translated by ADOLPHUS WILLIAM WARD, M.A., Fellow of St. Peter's 
College, Cambridge, Prof, of History in Owen's College, Manchester. 

To be completed In four or five vols., crown 8vo, at $3.50 per volume. 

Printed upon Tinted Paper, Uniform with Mommsen's History of Rome, and the 
Library Edition of Froude's History of England. 

VOLS. I., II., AND III., NOW READY. 



Curtius' History of Greece is similar in plan and purpose to Mommsen's History of 
Rome, with which it deserves to rank in every respect as one of the great masterpieces of 
historical literature. Avoiding the minute details which overburden other similar works, 
it groups together in a very picturesque manner all the important events in the history of 
this kingdom, which has exercised such a wonderful influence upon the world's civilization. 
The narrative of Prof. Curtius' work is flowing and animated, and the generalizations, 
although bold, are philosophical and sound. 



CRITICAL NOTICES. 



m " Professor Curtius* eminent scholarship is a sufficent guarantee for the trustworthiness of 
his history, while the skill with which he groups his facts, and his effective mode of narrating 
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tains the true dignity and impartiality of history, and it is evident his sympathies are on 
the side of justice, humanity, and progress." — London Athenceum. 

"We can not express our opinion of Dr. Curtius' book better than by saying that it may 
be fitly ranked with Theodor Mommsen's great work." — London Spectator. 

"As an introduction to the study of Grecian history, no previous work is comparable to 
the present for vivacity and picturesque beauty, while in sound learning and accuracy of 
statement it is not inferior to the elaborate productions which enrich the literature of the 
age." — N. Y. Daily Tribune. 

" The History of Greece is treated by Dr. Curtius so broadly and freely in the spirit of 
the nineteenth century, that it becomes in his hands one of the worthiest and most instructive 
branches of study for all who desire something more than a knowledge of isolated facts for 
their education. This translation ought to become a regular part ot the accepted course 
of reading for young men at college, and for all who are in training for the free political 
life of our country." — N. Y. Evening Post. 

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